You’ve got your game face on, ready to get your hands in the action! After all, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. You know this! You are a doer, a winner, a throw on rap music (or some hard-core country), and you are gonna take the plunge. You picked Your Perfect Financial Side Gig, dream career, new business, and you’re turning your dreams into reality.

So there you are, caution thrown to the wind, looking opportunity right in the face, claiming it! “You’re mine! I’ve got this.” You put on your best outfit and that gorgeous new Nars Powermatte “Don’t Stop” red lipstick and grab your nerdy hot blue-light-minimizing glasses and march yourself right up to your laptop logging into the doorway of success.

You Decided To Go For It, Now What? 

How do you set yourself up for success? The prosperity you’ve always known you deserved. The destiny that is your birthright that just hasn’t arrived in your bank account . . . yet.

In every industry, there are those who have done it, those who have done it well, and legends who conquered it, like Kobe Bryant versus any basketball hoop ever.

There isn’t an industry on the planet today that hasn’t born and bred someone’s success with grace, humility, kindness, integrity, and incredible life-altering financial results.

One of my all-time favorite coaches said to me, “Marlene, you have been an actress. When you take on a role, you study it; you dress like the person, walk like the person, talk, eat, and think like the person. What if you applied that same logic to mimic the most successful people in the industry you choose? Make your acclaimed role becoming an affluent businesswoman.”

What do the most accomplished people do? What do they also not do? That’s just as important to notice. So I heeded his advice and mirrored the most acclaimed people who modeled the attributes I valued most.

Top 5 Attributes to Mimic on Your Journey to Success:

#1 Dress the Part:

As a woman, I studied how my female business muses dressed. Were they sloppy and revealing? No. Classy with sexy sophistication and impeccable attention to detail? Absolutely. Are they healthy? Do your mentors take care of themselves physically and mentally? Most likely, the answer is yes! We may not always realize it, but we speak very loudly about who we are before we ever say our first word.

#2 A Lasting Impression:

We all have a ripple effect. What’s the one you want to leave behind? Study your inspiration. What’s the impact they have from the moment they walk into a room, to the last-standing impression. How do they make people feel? One of my favorite quotes is: “Don’t strive to make your presence noticed; make your absence felt.” Some leaders lead via control, while others lead via influence. The leaders I chose as my inspiration led with the latter.

#3 You’ve Got Skills:

Examine what skill sets they perfect. For example, do you need to become a public speaker to excel in your new venture? How about a social media marketing expert? Should you enhance your communication skills mastering how to start or advance a conversation? Every leader began as a student of their industry. What do you need to become a student of to excel? Notice the skills they possess and do everything you can to match that skillset in time. On this, be patient with yourself. Overnight success stories are never really overnight. Every “overnight” story I’ve ever heard was ten years in the making – but to the world, it may have appeared overnight.

#4 Time Management – The Ever-Evolving Challenge:

One of the biggest hurdles most get to overcome is how to manage the time it takes to start a new venture. A vital element is not merely what to spend time on, but equally as valuable, what not to spend time on. For example -brace yourself, this may be a shocker in this economic climate- now is the perfect time to hire someone to clean the house or do the yard work. (Yes, that’s right, I’m getting you out of your least favorite chores! You can thank me later! Feel free to take this to your spouse and quote me on this one.) Suppose you take the hour or two it requires to clean your house and reallocate it into your business where your income can grow exponentially. (And BONUS – you just contributed to the micro-economy creating an income for another!) In that case, that new cleaning service is a dollar well spent because the time invested in your new venture can accelerate the results you are creating for yourself and your family. What is the priority? If you only have so many hours a day to actualize massive earth-shattering results, what will most impact those hours?

#5 The Magic Sauce – Personal Development:

Personal development is a key ingredient, often overlooked. It’s like making cookies with no chocolate chips, and everyone knows cookies without chocolate chips are just not cookies. I mean seriously, what’s the point? Personal development may not be on the list of items capable of bringing a tangible result at the moment, like signing over a customer or landing that client meeting you’ve been praying for so diligently. Yet, please make no mistake about it, this is number one on the list to becoming the business idol you are idolizing today. I know someone is on the right track when one of the questions is, what are you listening to or reading? What books have had the most pronounced impact on your life? One of my absolute favorite starter books is John Maxwell’s, Failing Forward. If we aren’t growing, we are dying. There is no such thing as staying idle.

Success is not a mystery. It never has been. 

You picked your dream career, now don’t stop there! Find the person currently knocking that career out-of-the-park while kicking butt and taking names. Find who is the BEST in the industry and do what they do. Interview them or take them to lunch when possible! If you copy the actions, you ultimately copy the success. Eventually, you will apply everything you learned with your own personal, no-one-else-like-you-on-the-planet, spin on it. You’ll watch the doors open, and before you know it, people will be modeling their success after you! Now look in that mirror, say “Heck-ya” to the future you, and remember grateful is a great place to start.